This low cost Laptop works well on
Linux. The battery life is around 2.5 hours , and it runs
quietly.The screen is very good. The ergonomics are good,
althoughaccidental touches on the glide pad while typing are a
nuisanceat first.

The inbuilt Intel Pro wifi nic
requires a binary only runtime daemon. It also requires a
separate kernel module. I
installed source module ipw3945-1.2.0.tgz
and compiled it against kernel 2.6.20 .It will compile
satisfactorily against this kernel version's inbuilt ieee80211
stack (which you must enable during kernel configuration).It will
not compile against 2.6.18 or earlier. Make sure your kpkg etc.
versions etc are up to date or kernel 2.6.20 will not make
under Debian.The suspicious looking binary "regulatory
daemon" must be installed and started.I used ipw3945d-1.7.22
i386
. This daemon is available on the net from Intel. The daemon runs
reliably as long as the parameter associate=1 is given as an
option on loading the module and as long as you do not turn off
the wifi switch on the front right of the PC The latter can be
done easily accidentally ; in this case the kernel hangs!You must
remove the daemon before turning off the switch.This caused me
much frustration until I realized what was happening! The
following script will start it. You can use ifup & dhcp if you
want.It's a good card, most Centrino laptops use it - pity it
needs tainted code.

Later note : Kernels 2.6.21,2.6.22 and 2.6.23 do not work
reliably. The problem(s?) relates to interrupt resolution during
boot time and caused unpredictable hangs . Kernel 2.6.24
seems to work reliably. The .config file for this kernel was Kernel
Configuration File

The ipw3945 module no longer compiles
against this kernel version,but the iwl3945module included in the
kernel works with a few tweaks. The iwl3945 module does not need
the daemon. The required firmware is available in the Debian
"firmware-iwlwifi" package.

The "iproute" package was installed to provide the "ip
link" command which is needed to allow the interface to
associate with the wifi domain. The odd configuration, including
the pauses seemed necessary to get round bugs in the iwl3945
module. It seems to work reliably with the cludges above!

3/ Power management.

ACPI works well. Use the
Centrino option for frequency control in the kernel
configuration. If you have enabled this and installed cpufreq-set

>>
cpufreq-set -g performance

seems to kill any glide-pad/mouse
lag. The PC/cpu runs cool.

>> cat
/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info

Will give full information on
battery status. If you want a "low battery"warning then
you must find a utility do do this. I have not tested"suspend".The
AC adapter is rated at 15 volt 4 amp. Acpi reports a consumption of
about 1.5 amp. The adapter runs fairly warm.

4/ Glide
Pad.Takes a bit of getting used to. tpconfig seems to work.

5/
Wired Ethernet Nic.This an intel nic and uses the e100
driver.For some reason or other there are a continues series of
issues with wake up on LAN magic packets andthis driver.I
have used a few other PC's that use this nic, and patched the e100
driver in the kernel.This is very tiresome and risky. If you
enable WOL using ethtool and shutdown the nic before theDebian
powerdown scripts are executed , then WOL using magic packets will
work.I'm not sure whether the right fix is in e100.c or in the
shutdown scripts. I'm now taking the latterapproach. Hopefully
someone will resolve this .

6/ CD-RWWorks fine, but very
slow. Good to have when needed to export data on rare
occasions.DVD/CD read works well. The internal CD writer hangs
the kernel with kernel 2.6.24.2. An external usb writer works satisfactorily with
this kernel!

7/ SoundAlsa works well. The sound quality
of the inbuilt speakers is quite good.

8/ SD Card Reader. Works using TIFM module. Inserting a card
can sometimes hang the CPU. This is instantaneous on insertion, and probably
a result of inadequate supply inrush suppression.Doesn't happen often,
but be wary!

9/ Blue Tooth. This model has none. A plug in USB adapter
works.

10/ LCD Screen. The screen works well and is crisp. My X
configuration is /etc/X11/xorg.conf

11/ Hard DiskThis is an SATA type. If you do not
enable SATA (piix etc) in the kernel the hard drive willappear as
hda1,hda2 etc. and is similar to ide disks. Unfortunately it is not
possible toenable DMA in this mode, and the mouse and cpu and
sometimes keyboard will get blockedby disk accesses.To avoid
this annoyance /etc/fstab must be changed to use sda1,sda2 etc in
place of hda1,hda2and the SATA,PIIX and SCSII functions must be
enabled in the kernel (I did'nt waste time trying to use
modules). Since this is a process where both changes must happen at
the same time, be careful,or better , have a Knoppix or other
recue cd or partition in case you make a mistake.It looks as if
all hard disks are changing over to SCSII, so we'll all have to go
through this nasty renamingprocess. Of course all the USB devices
also change as result of sda etc. being occupied by SATA.

The
following kernelboot parameters proved necessary to get the correct
sata driver selection with later kernels.